Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

CULTS

CULTS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kʌlts/

Noun

plural of cult

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How CULTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CULTS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 78.8% of games, misses completely in 21.2%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #710 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 guesses in games solved within six turns.

Try your feedback pattern

Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe CULTS used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

4.74 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CULTS performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#710 Rank among openers
Opening with CULTS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #710 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
1,007
4 guesses
1,136
5 guesses
133
6 guesses
16
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
26%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

CULTS can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

504 answers
233 answers
192 answers
174 answers
104 answers
90 answers
80 answers
66 answers
61 answers
61 answers
58 answers
54 answers
51 answers
43 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for CULTS; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

C3U1L1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing CULTS

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CULTS.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CULTS:

21% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
10% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
8% chance
Suggested:
PAIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

21.2%
RAINE 6.15 bits
9.8%
RAINE 5.42 bits
8.1%
PAIRE 5.66 bits
7.3%
TIARE 5.52 bits
4.4%
RAISE 5.01 bits
3.8%
IRONE 5.18 bits
3.4%
RAINE 5.17 bits
2.8%
RAINE 4.42 bits
2.6%
GRONE 5.02 bits
2.6%
GRAME 4.23 bits

Research on CULTS

Game-tree analysis and word research for CULTS, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with CULTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,757 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with CULTS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, because the two figures score different answer lists.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KUHLTS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CULTS is a kind of faith or fashion.

Synonyms rage CRAZE fad

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CULTS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

In a sentence

A lot of cults do things like that.
© tatoeba.org contributor Miktsoanit (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Some cults practice ritual sex.
© tatoeba.org contributor sabretou (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).